Motor vehicle accidents kill thousands of people in North America and world wide each year. Many of these accidents are either directly or indirectly caused by unexpected road hazards which can include anything from wildlife or livestock on the road to stalled cars, fog banks, black ice, smoke, fallen rock vehicle and other accidents, farm and various other machinery, lost loads and vehicle debris, downed trees, wash-outs, snowslides, mud slides and the like. These hazards are dangerous, and often cause accidents, precisely because they are unexpected.
Advance warning of such random, unexpected road hazards, sufficient to alert the driver of an oncoming vehicle and permit him or her time to slow down or stop, is all that is normally required to prevent an accident.
Currently, however, even where drivers negotiate such circumstances and are therefore aware of the unusual danger or condition lying ahead of the oncoming traffic, and wish to warn oncoming drivers, there is no established or accepted, safe and reliable method or device to allow them to communicate an advance warning to approaching vehicles.
While flashing one's headlights could be interpreted as such a warning, it is cumbersome and generally not understood as a signal connoting impending danger. Plus, one would have to repeatedly flash the vehicle headlights for each oncoming vehicle or group of vehicles. In addition, such practice is not advisable at night since either human or mechanical failure to get the lights back on presents a significant danger in itself. An additional problem with head light flashing, is that the driver of the oncoming vehicle has no way of knowing the distance to the upcoming, unexpected road hazard. This may result in the driver relaxing and speeding up just before coming upon the hazard.
Similarly, four-way flashers, which flash signal lights at all four corners of the vehicle simultaneously, indicate that the flashing vehicle is, itself, the hazard. Turn signals indicate turns. Even hand signals are of little value.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,237,306, issued to Robert Adell on Aug. 17, 1993, a signalling system is described for requesting a driver of a motor vehicle to dim or turn. on his vehicle's headlights, but Adell provides no means for warning on-coming drivers of an upcoming roadhazard, or for informing them of the relative location of that road hazard.